Bad Day at the Office

“Bad Day at the Office,” Episode 242

💔 Grief. Chaos. Conspiracy. Welcome back to the County of Perswayssick… where nothing—and no one—stays stable for long. 💔 Cleve is gone… but something isn’t adding up.  In Perswayssick County, grief and chaos collide as secrets begin to surface.In this emotionally charged episode of Perswayssick Radio: Unearthly Comedy, stranded Earthling Nicki Rodriguez struggles to process the devastating loss of her friend… while everything around her begins to spiral out of control.As Nicki fights through waves of grief and suspicion, strange developments pile up fast: 🚗 A mysteriously released Splodge  📉 Hidden stock schemes and financial deception  🌪️ A very real (or is it?) personal tornado named Twisty 📞 A frantic Diroctor Gneeecey unraveling under pressure  📢 County-wide protests, subpoenas, and political upheaval.... Meanwhile, Gneeecey’s world collapses into absurdity—malfunctioning meds, mismatched socks, exploding doors, and increasingly questionable decisions that may finally catch up with him… And Nicki? She’s quietly planning her escape. ⏳ With a looming deadline and more questions than answers, one thing is certain:  Cleve’s death may be far more than it seems. Will Nicki uncover the truth… or get pulled deeper into Perswayssick’s madness?  Listen🎧 https://perswayssickradio.buzzsprout.com 🎧If you enjoy comedy sci-fi podcasts, surreal storytelling, bizarre alien worlds, and darkly funny audio dramas, you’re in the right dimension. 🎙️ New episodes weekly  🎙️ Subscribe & enter the chaos We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode! We thank Sam Leviatin for providing Gneeecey’s “beaudiful voaline music.” And we thank Marysol Rodriguez, Sal Solá, Sandi Solá, Marcellina Ramirez, Rick “El Molestoso” Rivera, Diane L., Brunie Cariño, Toni Aponte, and Aileen Bean for being generous supporting members through BuyMeACoffee.com. Artwork Created by Vicki Solá & ChatGPT  

Transcript

Transcript / “Bad Day at the Office” – Episode 242, by Vicki Solá.

(Based on material from THE GETAWAY THAT GOT AWAY by Vicki Solá  (© 2011, Full Court Press) 

All content © 2026 Perswayssick Radio: Unearthly Comedy. 

SFX: [Misgivings & Misfortune]

NICKI RODRIGUEZ: Grief pulsed, like a caustic fluid, through the chambers of my raw heart. I tried to convince myself that Cleve and I were only working different shifts, and in a few minutes, we’d bump into each other, just long enough to share a joke or a hug. Or a grievance.
 Whenever that fragile fantasy crumbled, or some trivial, everyday thing reminded me of him—a swig of antacid, a good cup of coffee, or a song we’d made fun of—I’d end up hightailing it to the restroom.
 Cleve hadn’t been buried for twenty-four hours.
 Those who might have been able to help me get to the bottom of what really happened—like Frank Salvador or the Imbroglios—were missing in action themselves. Or having their own problems, like Flea, whose ESP now malfunctioned ninety-nine per cent of the time.
 As for my mysteriously mobile Splodge, Zeke said that someone had authorized its release a couple days before Cleve’s death, but he couldn’t—or make that wouldn’t—tell me more.
Meatball maven and therapist Ingabore Scriblig, also known as “Grandma,” had just, this day, sold me her elderly Aunt Cookitha’s only-driven-to-Saint Bogelthorpe’s-on-Somedays Splodge Nebulizer—a slightly newer, more compact model than my missing monstrosity. Grayish-pink, or “grink,” as Mrs. Scriblig described this new car—well, it was new to me—it had smaller fins and far less rust.
But like its predecessor, it was allergic to wet weather, frigid temperatures, stop-and-go traffic, and, as Mrs. Scriblig had also warned me, anything but the highest grade, most expensive fuels. And it was prone to backfiring. SFX: [Car Engine] [Backfiring] I couldn’t complain, though—I’d paid pennies for the car. Didn’t want to dig too deeply into my ten grand for a ride I’d be ditching soon.
In less than a week, right after Perswayssick County’s spiritual leader, the Grand Ooogitty-Boogitty’s concert—during the pre-parade confusion—I planned to steal away and attempt
a return home. I’d be gone by Decvember 1st.
Stomach flip-flopping, I gazed at the outvoices heaped on Gneeecey’s administrative assistant Fraxinella’s still unmanned desk. According to Gneeecey, they were my fault, too.
Speaking of my white-and-black-furred canine-humanoid boss and landlord Gneeecey, things weren’t going all that well for him either. Neither his teddy bear Yammicles nor his critically important sock repair ticket were anywhere to be found. 

But he did discover his monstrous prehistoric goths, the misty morning of Cleve’s funeral, frozen in combat, their cast-iron inner fangs and twenty-three collective metallic limbs tangled and rusted, under the tree that stalked him night and day.
 The goths’ demise was my fault, too. If it wasn’t for me, the flesh-eatin’ little darlings could have had the run of the house after they demolished their new, priority-delivered and installed plate-armored playroom door.
 But, as they say, when one door shatters, another opens. Recently, Twisty the Tornado, an associate of Evil Mister tree, had entered our lives. Only Gneeecey could actually see the grinning, spinning, chin-high funnel cloud. And he seemed to be its lone victim, mercilessly blown about his Bimbus Crack Drive’s rolling, plaid acres when no one else was around. SFX: [Tornado] [Gneeecey: “Yaaaaaah! Yaaaaaah! Yaaaaaah!”]
Chalking it up to anxiety, Gneeecey’s neurologist, Dr. Alexandra C. Idnas, had bumped his Bumpex up two-thousand milligrams. And he was not happy. SFX: [Tornado] [Phone] [Phone Ringing]

“Hallo, Doctor Idnas speaking,” answered Gneeecey’s doctor. 

“What took ya so stinkin’ long?” 

“Vhy, hallo, Diroctor Gneeecey. How can I—”  

“I’m so sick of youse people not takin’ me seriously! These lousy meds ya described me ain’t workin’! I mean, what do I pay youse for? Answer me thaaat! I’m stinkin’ sick of no one takin’ me seriously! I’m tellin’ ya, Twisty the Tornado—he’s my own personal tornado—he’s after me—right now! I’m tellin’ ya, he exists! Ain’t my dopey imagination, an’ the extra meds ain’t doin’ nuthin’—”

“Diroctor Gneeecey, tell me, is dee tornado in the room vit us right now?”

“Don’t get snarkastic wit’ meee! Yooou ain’t even in the room wit’ us right now! Stinkin’ goodbye!” SFX: [Bang]
Yep, as for anxiety, there was no shortage.  SFX: [Angry Crowd] Pro-345 environmentalists, and just plain, disenchanted citizens, picketed outside the Vompt Pavillion daily, since that fateful Quality of Life meeting. Their bullhorns blasted loud and clear, all the way up to our building’s 250th floor and right through WGAS’s supposedly soundproof walls, interfering with live programming. Also heard ’round the county were more than a few whispers, calling for the resignation of Grate Gizzy you-know-who, and the appointment of Jacob J. Qwertyuiop, to finish out Gneeecey’s blighted term.
Tragedy had even struck inside the mansion, when Flea hung Gneeecey’s prized acoustic Stradivopoulos SFX: [Voaline 3] on what turned out to be a fly on the wall. SFX: [Wood Demolition] [Slide Guitar] Freaked out, the superhero had dashed through a closed window. SFX: [Sneakers Squeaking] [Glass Shatter] like a duck on fire.
Speaking of ducks, Gneeecey’s limo driver Culvert, released from the hospital earlier than
expected, had just called to inform his irate employer that he’d found himself a less stressful job on some farm in New Peapack, closing turkeys’ mouths when it rains. SFX: [Pouring Rain With a Thunderstorm] [Turkey Gobble]
I shook my head and plucked an outvoice from the top of the pile SFX: [Rustling Papers], and scanned the “fourth and final” notice stapled to it, threatening to refer the matter to a collection agency. Why would Gneeecey contest a $5.95 invoice from Dinwiddie’s Inflatable Squeak Toys & Broadcast Supplies?
Oh, well, whatever. . .I reached for a pen.
“Ig!” shrieked Gneeecey.
Exhaling slowly, I trudged into his office, for the nineteenth time. Since lunch. SFX: [Footsteps Concrete] As soon as I opened my mouth to ask what he wanted, his phone rang.  SFX: [Phone Ringing]
“Bad mornin’!” he hollered into the mouthpiece. “Yeah, Gregoogory. . .uh-huh. . .we’re adjusticatin’ to the bigger workload. Thank Bogelthorpe I got someone like Stu, now that Cleeevoooveland’s desiccated.” Gneeecey glared at me.
Through stinging tears, I glared back.
“Uh-huh. . .yeah… an’ thanks for your expressions of grimpoopathy—an’ thank everyone at the Board of Guesstimates for the fruit basket. G’bye.”
I tilted my head. “Grimpoopathy?”
“Yeah, Ig—comboobination of grief an’ sympoopathy.”
“Now, uh, what did you want?”
“Nuthin’! Why’re ya jus’ staaandin’ there? Git back to work—look at all them outvoices!”
His hotline began wailing. [SFX: Airplane Alarm] I looked at him like I’d never seen him before.
“Git!” he ordered me.
I returned to Fraxinella’s desk. SFX: [Footsteps Concrete]
“Ig! Get in here—now!”
Teeth clenched, I marched back into his office. SFX: [Footsteps Concrete] “Yesssssss?”
“Remember my last visit to the opoophthalmologist?”
“Yesssssss.”
“I memorized that lousy eye chart for nuthin’!” he shouted, spraying me with spittle.
“What,” I asked, recoiling, “is the problem?”
He leapt up onto his desk. “My new glaaaaasses ain’t no good!”
Just then, I noticed he’d put his socks on over his sneakers. And they didn’t match.
“I caaan’t read!”
“Uh, Diroctor, I think you, uh, put on your, uh—”
“I know my stinkin’ socks don’t match—now read this e-mail for me!”
“Uh, this message saying your support group for ex-laxative abusers meets today?”
“Not thaaaaat one,” he yowled, yanking on my sleeve. “This one!”
My eyebrows shot up. “It says the MierkoZurk stocks you swore you never owned, but recently divested and put in Flubbubb’s name—behind his back—are plummeting in value.”
Knotty veins popped out, visible beneath his fur.
I backed away, slowly. “When you thought you’d be found out, you put ’em in Flubbubb’s name, without even asking him?”
“Jus’ till this 345 mess blows over. He’s a natural for a straw man—he ain’t got no brain!”
I crossed my arms. “Isn’t that called cheating?”
“Only if ya look at it that way.”
“I think I’m beginning to put some of the pieces together, now.”
 “Get outta here! An’ who tol’ you to read my lousy e-mails anyways?” He slammed his door so hard SFX: [Door Slam], the glass panel popped out and exploded SFX: [Glass Shatter] [Glass Debris] before it hit the carpet. 

SFX: [Magic Spell]
 Gneeecey sat perusing SPLOGGLE Digest, a bathroom supply catalog that offered a wide assortment of sploggles—those devices that clipped to the back of toilet seats, to keep one’s tail high and dry. He seemed unaware that the glossy publication was positioned upside-down, as were his new eyeglasses.
Sighing, I reached for a stapler. “Ig! Get in here—nooow!”
I groaned.
“Don’chooo understanderate the meanin’ of now?!”
I stepped over what had been his office door.
He hurled his spectacles across the room. “Din’cha think I’d find out ’bout your little plan to rent that room over that Scriblig woman’s meatball shop?”
I gaped at him.
He stuffed one of his striped health cigars in his kisser. “Well, ya can forget it—her tenant ain’t leavin’ after all. Seems someone convinced the guy he should stay.”
 I stared down at the cheap maroon pleather pumps I’d bought in Oddlottz the other day.
 Gneeecey’s telephone rang again. SFX: [Phone Ring] “Grate One here. . .yeah, Flubbubb, thanks for tellin’ me I’m welcome for the thank you card ya sent. G’bye!”
 I cleared my throat. “Anything else, Diroctor?”
 “Yeah—stop interruptin’ me.”
 I picked up theDinwiddie’s outvoice. And glanced sideways at Gneeecey, yakking on his phone.
 “Yup, Mark,” he squeaked, as he chewed on his knuckles, “jus’ three more installments an’ I’ll deliver it myself. But I gotta add a surcharge, ’cause I suffered a loss recently—y’know, Yammicles. An’ yeah,” he continued, looking my way, “sooner or later, we’ll get her to talk. G’bye!”
Squirming, I checked off both of the outvoice’s preprinted no-pay options, “product defective/service unsatisfactory” and “notice of counterclaim/possible lawsuit.”
“Ig!”
My eyes rolled up to the ceiling, then back down to my mountain of paperwork.
“Ig! Ig! Ig!”
I limped into his office. “What?! What?! What?!”
“Order me a gallon of copy paper.”
“How can I—”
“Don’t question me—jus’ do what I say! An’ call Dr. Idnas. My pills ain’t workin’—I think the pharmacy’s substitutin’ lower-costin’ place bows.”
“Yes, Diroctor.” I didn’t mind talking to Dr. Idnas. She understood. And I needed to inform her of Gneeecey’s latest plot to murder Mister Tree.
The good diroctor intended to inhale a bushel of rindom-laced pepper and sneeze the oak down.
“Stop lookin’ at me like that, Ig!”
“I wasn’t—”
“An’ I need SFX: [Phone Ring] —wait, Ig—gotta take this call. Yeah, stinkin’ hello! What? Another bakery break-in? CheeseQuake’s, out in Stuperville? An’ y’wanna know, as Grate Gizzy of Perswayssick County, what I’m gonna dooo about it? Well, uh, the situational requirements that this situation requires are, uh, situational. I’ll address situational requirements at our next meeting. G’bye!”
“Diroctor, you were saying you wanted me to—”
“Those drapes over there—see how they’re starin’ back, real funny-like?”
“Did you take your last batch of pills?”
“Pills ain’t gonna stop them curtains from comin’ to get me when I ain’t lookin’.”
I knew had to distract him, and fast. I pointed to an old newspaper floating on his desktop. “Look at that Pooper-Scooper headline—isn’t that your photo underneath?”
 It worked. He smiled.
 I shoved the paper under his snout. “It says, ‘Perswayssick County’s Rich Are Getting Richer.’ But what about the poor?”
 He scratched his head. “What about ’em? Oh, Ig, you’re poor, an’ that reminds me—ya gotta go back downtown an’ exchange the new equipment ya jus’ picked up.”
 “What?”
“Stu did another sound check at the auditorium—says we need the more expensive Glavorzian 320x wires. The thicker ones wit’ them Mierk-tensilated input-output repellent gizmos on each end.”
“Send him.” I stamped my foot and my shoe ripped. SFX: [Footsteps Concrete] [Fabric Tear]
“I need Stu here. You’re goin’.” He threw a cable-filled bag at me.
 “I’ve been to Schweinzimmer Electronics six times in the past week! Buying stuff, returning stuff, buying more stuff, returning more stuff—they think I’m nuts!”
“Everything hasta be perfoofect for his holiness, our Grand Oogitty Boogitty. His tail will be in
our neck of the woods, any day now.”
 I popped a StomQuell. “That trip downtown is murder—my car’s gonna overheat in all that traffic—”
 “Who told ya to buy that ol’ vehickookle from that Scriblig woman? Even though she’s my therapist, I don’t trust her. An’ you know what the law says. Buyers beware—emperors got cadavers. Ya shoulda let meee find ya another good car.”
I clasped my hands behind my back, so as not to strangle him. “I’ll go. But you’ll have to give me something from petty cash to cover the price difference.”
“Yes, I won’t.”
I forced a smile. “Is that yes, you will, or no, you won’t?”
“Yes, I said yes I won’t. An’ also, no you will.”
“I will, but you won’t? If you don’t, I can’t—and won’t!”
“I awready said yes, I ain’t, but then ya said I said yes I won’t, so ya can’t. An’ won’t. So, yes, I ain’t.”
“Isn’t that what I asked you—if you said yes, you’re not?”
“Yeah, ya did, an’ yes, I did, an’ yes I’m not—aren’chooo? If ya don’t, then I won’t not, not unless you do.”
“You let me know when you figure it out,” I replied, tossing the sack back at him.
“Anyone ever tell ya, Ig, you’re dense!”

SFX: [Magic Spell]
 “Ig! Get in here—on the doubooble!”
 I threw the Dinwiddie’s outvoice up in the air.
 “Nooow!”
I popped my head through his empty door frame. “What?”
“Nuthin’,” he replied, looking at me like I was chained to a cup-clutching chimp as I stood on my head, playing an accordion.
“Why’d you call me in here then?”
“Can’cha see I’m busy? Go process your lousy outvoices!”
“I’m trying to.”
“An’ Ig, din’cha hear me callin’ ya? Get in here—take a letter.”
Muttering, I stepped back into his office SFX: [Footsteps Concrete] and sat down. He threw a
pad and pencil into my lap. “It’s to John Smiff, Equestrian.”
I looked up. “What?”
“Our new attorney. Now take this down. Dear Mister Smiff: Imagine my horrification when, today, I was accused of falsely untrue—” SFX: [Phone Ring]
The ol’ horn rang again. He grabbed it. “Yeah? Bad mornin’, Qwertyuiop…haaah? Whaaat? Whaaat polls say 345’s gonna pass by a landslide? Huh? Youse met behind my back an’ got a subpoena, requestin’ my financial records?!”
Gneeecey’s peepers popped out of his head like a pair of fly balls.
“An’ I gotta reaccuse myself an’ let yooou run that special meeting? Whaaat? Ya mean I can’t stinkin’ defend myself till after election day? Re-read our bylaws—that ain’t legal! It stinkin’ is?!” He whisked the entire handset off his desk and pitched it over my ducking head. SFX: [Cartoon Slip] [Orchestra Cliffhanger] [Magic Spell] 

We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode! We thank Sam Leviatin for providing Gneeecey’s “beaudiful voaline music.” And we thank Marysol Rodriguez, Sal Solá, Sandi Solá, Marcellina Ramirez, Rick “El Molestoso” Rivera, Diane L., Brunie Cariño, Toni Aponte, and Aileen Bean for being generous supporting members through BuyMeACoffee.com. 

And thank you for tuning in to “Perswayssick Radio: Unearthly Comedy.” We hope you enjoyed traveling to this loopy dimension with us and that you’ll come along again! Our new episodes drop every Tuesday morning! Please make sure to tell a friend! And keep on laughing! 

Frank: It’s a Gneeecey thing! [SFX: Door Slam] ###